EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES IN TEXTBOOKS: THE CASE OF IRANIAN EAP CONTEXT
EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES IN TEXTBOOKS: THE CASE OF IRANIAN EAP CONTEXT

Summary/Abstract: Technological developments have been changing the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) instruction. Although there is a wide literature on (the effects of) application of various educational technologies in EAP courses, there is scarcely any literature on the inclusion of such technologies in EAP textbooks. This study addresses that gap and investigates whether and how educational technologies have been introduced or applied in the EAP textbooks used in Iranian universities. Moreover, it tries to elicit the reasons why the authors of those textbooks included or excluded such technologies. To achieve the first objective, 94 EAP textbooks from four disciplines, namely Arts, Engineering, Humanities, and Medicine, were selected and analyzed to find out whether and how these textbooks treat educational technologies. To fulfil the second objective, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 18 of the EAP textbook writers to discover their justifications regarding the inclusion or exclusion of educational technologies in the books. The results indicated that the textbooks were largely devoid of educational technologies, with the authors citing a number of reasons for not including such technologies in the books, the most important of which was their own lack of educational technology know-how. Since EAP courses are usually implemented in universities, this study suggests that introduction and incorporation of affordances provided by educational technologies in EAP textbooks can contribute to university teachers’ efficacy and students’ academic development.

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